. I^, .
»
: j'
. îr4
' Î
1- i .
f i l l IT »
Li rli 'Ai fe
Cryptogramme crispa, forma Americana, H o o k e r , Sp. Fil., ii., p . 130.
Allosorus acrostichoides, S p e e m g e l , “ Syst., p. 66.”—W. D. W h i t n e y , in
Foster & Whitney's Rep. on Geol. of Lake Superior, ii.,
p. 380.— B r a c k e n r id g e , Fil. U. S. Expl. Exped., p. 19 .—
G r a y , Manual, ed. ii., p. 591.
Allosorus crispus, K a u l f u s s , Enum. Fil., p. 143 (excl. synl).
Allosorus foveolatus, R d p r e c i i t , Distr. Crypt. Vase, in Imp. Ross., p. 47.
Allosorus Sitchensis, R u p r e c h t , Distr. Crypt. Vase, in Imp. Ross., p. 48.
Allosorus crispus, var. acrostichoides, M i l d e , Fil. Eur. et Atlant., p. 24.
Gymnogramme acrostichoides, P r e s l , Tent. Pterid., p. 219.
Phorobolus acrostichoides, Fée, Gen. Fil., p. 13 1,
H a b . In dense tufts and patches, among rocks and in their
crevices, from Arctic America southward to Lake Superior, Colorado,
Alaska, and the Sierra of California, where Professor B r e w e r reports
finding it at 8,000 to 10,000 feet above the sea. The species was first
collected by M e n z i e s at Nutka Sound.
D e s c r i p t i o n : — This fern grows in large masses, formed
of many crowded root-stocks, which are chaffy with ovate-
lanceolate long-pointed dark-ferruginous scales. The stalks
are green when living, but stramineous in dried specimens,
rather slender, slightly furrowed in front, and chaffy below
the middle; the scales with a broad dark-brown midnerve,
but paler on the margins. There is a single fibro-vascular
bundle, obtusely-triangular in section.
The sterile fronds have stalks from two to four inches
long : they are chartaceous or subcoriaceous, smooth, ovate in
outline, rather densely twice or three times pinnate, and have
m
the general and partial rachises narrowly winged. Their ultimate
segments are oval or ovate, sometimes obovate, rarely
over five lines long, and crenately toothed, or less commonly
incised-toothed.
The fertile fronds stand nearly twice as high as the
others, and have fewer and more distant, longer, narrower
and distinctly stalked pinnules rather than segments. These
pinnules are pod-like, having the edges so far recurved as to
meet at the midvein, or even to overlap, forming herbaceous
involucres. The veinlets are mostly once forked near the
midvein, and are covered with sporangia arranged in lines
hidden beneath the involucre, whence the name given by
Brown.' The sporangia at length become confluent, and
cover the under surface of the pinnules. The spores are
tetrahedral with rounded sides, and plainly trivittate.
Robert Brown, in proposing this genus, observed that
the type of it is C. acrostichoides, but that he had so cone
l|
!l
l i i
1 : 4
‘ I have followed Hooker’s orthography in this word. It was originally written
Cryptogramma.
F or a full discussion o f the reasons for adopting the name Cryptogramme for this
genus, rather than Allosorus, see Hooker’s Species F ilic um , volume second, and page
1 3 1 . I have only to add to his remarks that the A d ia n ta s p u r ia ” o f Swartz, which
Bernhardi included in his genus Allosorus, is a division to be found in Schra ders Jo u r n a l
f ü r d ie B o ta n ik , 1800, ii., p . 84. The species are A d . v ir id e , microphyllum,fragrans,
Caffrortim, parvilobum, capcnse, pteroides, tcnuifolium and ^nuUißduin. The first of
these is now a Pellæa ; all the rest species o f Cheilanthes. So that Allosorus was made
up o f eight or nine species o f Cheilanthes, one Pellcea, one P te r is and P te r is crispa.
So ill-assorted a congeries was never deserving o f preservation.
f i l
i\i